The second floor of London’s Design Museum is currently occupied by two exhibitions: Ergonomics: Real Design, and Less is More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams. The first one takes up about one quarter of the floor space; the second extends over all the rest. This disparity is immediately striking. Is it intentional? Is there some devious, hidden agenda to which we unsuspecting visitors are being subjected by the directorate of the Museum? And if so, what conclusion are we expected to draw from the incongruous pairing?
The Ergonomics exhibition marks 60 years since the founding of the Ergonomics Society and is the product of a partnership between the Design Museum, Brunel University, Loughborough University, Laura Grant Associates and the Society itself. The first item you encounter in the show, prominently displayed, is an anthropometrically correct tape measure: useful, undoubtedly, and quite pretty; but it is such a trivial entry in the list of achievements over the 60 year existence of such a crucially important discipline, to be given such pride of position.
Other, more weighty aspects of ergonomics are, indeed, hinted at in other exhibits. No one could deny the (literally) vital importance of correct labelling for medication packaging. Yet this topic, worth an exhibition to itself, is dealt with so cursorily that most visitors to the exhibition, as I witnessed on two visits, pass it with hardly a glance.
The simplest, most obvious principle in ergonomics appears to have been overlooked in the placing of a video screen over a medical resuscitation trolley, right against a large window so that, during normal daylight, it is almost impossible to scan. Yet all too clearly visible are nine large video screens relating to the Bloodhound SSC Land Speed Record vehicle, five of which have identical films of the vehicle at speed, the other four having identical views of the the cab interior. They flicker continually and are merely an unhelpful distraction, having no discernible ergonomic content. Dominating the longest wall is an array of unexplained diagrams of manikins doing nothing in particular and hands grasping – what? To top it all, this feature, and the plinths and supports of all the other exhibits, are finished in a bilious yellow. Ugh!
Thankfully (at first), you retreat into the uniform greyness of the Dieter Rams exhibition. Here, all is cool, ordered, coherent. Rams joined the German consumer electronics company, Braun AG in 1955, first as interior designer, then as product designer. Appointed director of design in 1962, he stayed with Braun until his retirement in 1995. During his 40 years with the company he created a consistent design style unparalleled in this field. The exhibition is a celebration of this achievement. Its tone is reverent and fulsome (the only critical note being a nitpicking aside from Reyner Banham to the effect that he found it impossible to insert his slice of bread into the inedequate slot in the toaster), and you feel almost as though you are in church.
But… some 10 metres along the first row of exhibits you begin to have the strangest recurring quandary: is this a heater? an infrared lamp? A portable radio? a tuner? a slide projector? You even find yourself, occasionally, resorting to the caption, just to make sure. Perhaps this is just the result of such a vast exposure of one person’s work and is only to be expected. Be that as it may, you cannot resist the increasing impression of – yes, it has to be said – sameyness.
It wasn’t always so with Braun products. I well remember the pleasure of seeing and handling the SK4 radio/record player of 1956, co-designed by Rams and Hans Gugelot, Here was something different from all the other, undistinguished competitors, something to marvel at; but the thrill had gone, for me at any rate, by 1976, when the incomparable Bang & Olufsen 1900 tuner/amplifier appeared. Only 8cm high – no larger than was needed to encompass the necessary innards – it made the cuboid equivalents from Braun look ponderous in comparison. Furthermore, it looked as if B&O’s designer, Jacob Jensen, had taken note of ergonomics whereas Rams appeared not to be at all concerned about it.
So here we get to the nub: the exhibits in ‘Ergonomics: Real Design’ appear to dispense with anything approaching style or elegance; and the Rams exhibits appear to have sacrificed everything, including ergonomics, for a cuboid obsession that is, in the end, sterile. Being charitable, you might suppose that, as suggested at the head of this review, the Design Museum intended to point up this dichotomy, which reflects badly on both exhibitions. I think not; but we can draw the lesson, nevertheless, can we not?
